1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to display interfaces, and more particularly to a method and system for supporting multiple display interface standards.
2. Description of the Related Art
Unless otherwise indicated herein, the approaches described in this section are not prior art to the claims in this application and are not admitted to be prior art by inclusion in this section.
A display interface is a communication link that connects a display device with an image source system from which the display device receives data signals for image display. The function of the display interface is to convert data streams provided by the image source system into a suitable format for transmission to the display device. As image processing and display technologies continue to advance to support displaying increasingly higher display resolutions from various image source systems, such as computers, games consoles, DVD players, set top boxes, and others, a suite of specifications for the display interface have also been developed and standardized. To ensure compatibility to various types of display devices in the marketplace, the image source system needs to support multiple display interface standards.
FIG. 1 illustrates a conventional approach in the design of an image source system that supports multiple display interface standards. An image source system 100, for example a computer system, has a display interface unit 110 that includes separate sets of output pins 114, 118 and 122, each of which is dedicated to transmit display output signals adhering to a specific specification. Some examples of the specification include the Low Voltage Differential Signaling (LVDS) standard, the Digital Visual Interface (DVI) standard, and the High Definition Multimedia Interface (HDMI) standard. The image source system 100 includes distinct functional units, such as a LVDS logic unit 112, a DVI logic unit 116, and a HDMI logic unit 120, that convert data streams into output signals of conforming to the LVDS, DVI, and HDMI standards, respectively. Each of these functional units is coupled to a set of corresponding output pins 114, 118, or 122 through a separate and pre-wired circuit path. In other words, the display interface unit 110 supports different display interface standards by physically including multiple sets of functional units that perform the necessary data format conversions and also the corresponding sets of output pins to connect with different types of a display device 124.
Despite of its ability to support multiple display interface standards, the prior art system shown in FIG. 1 has a number of disadvantages. One, to support just three display interface standards, the display interface 110 of the image source system 100 already has to include three sets of the output pins 114, 118 and 122, which not only increases the total pin count for the display interface but also adds wiring complexity and renders the display interface less power-efficient. Two, the inflexibility of the prior art system is further exposed whenever a new display interface standard is proposed and adopted, since the display interface 110 needs to be redesigned to accommodate the new standard.
As the foregoing illustrates, what is needed in the art is thus a method and system that can flexibly and efficiently support multiple display interface standards and address at least the problems set forth above.